We have focused our research on Automated Guided Vehicles (AGVs) which travel over a network of allowed paths defined in software and navigate using data from several types of sensors. This technology should be more flexible to install and modify, and opens the door to added capabilities and innovative control strategies. We are experimenting with a prototype, test -bed vehicle which navigates by dead reckoning from odometry and by periodically measuring its absolute position with a simple machine vision system. Ongoing research seeks methods of adaptive improvement of system parameters affecting guidance. We have also developed a novel correlating camera that "watches the floor go by" to make non -contact displacement measurements that can complement odometry. Accuracies of 1 part in 3000 appear to be achievable from this device. For navigating inside semi -trailers, we have investigated a wall -following application of ultrasonic ranging.
An automatic torque magnetometer has been developed for use in high-pressure hydeogen. It will contain pressures ranging from vacuum to 200 atm of hydrogen gas at sample temperatures greater than 400 degrees C. This magnetometer, which uses an optical lever postion sensor and a restoring force technique has an operating range of 2.0x10(3) dyn cm to l.6x10(-4) dyn cm. An accompanying digital data collection system extends the sensitivity to 1x10(-5) dyn cm as well as increasing the data handling capacity of the system. The magnetic properties of thin films in high-temperature and high-pressure hydrogen environments can be studied using this instruments.
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